Why do people come here?
I am not sure.
Why dot they plan to stay a month and end up staying 6 months?
Because Lake Atitlan is magical and all the villages and people who get blessed with its power are therefore also magical!
The people are amazing and each day surprises you to an extent, where you just smile and say: c'est la vie!!
I am not sure.
Why dot they plan to stay a month and end up staying 6 months?
Because Lake Atitlan is magical and all the villages and people who get blessed with its power are therefore also magical!
The people are amazing and each day surprises you to an extent, where you just smile and say: c'est la vie!!
I have now been at the lake for about two weeks and apart from my spiritual journey, which I have been undertaking at the Lake, my opportunity for volunteerism has been never-ending. We, as a group. have now really established a relationship with the community of Tzununa and have been helping in any way possible.
Amongst meetings for women, nutrition talks and art projects for the children we have mainly been educating about recycling and healthy life-styles.
With a limited diet of tortillas, frijoles (beans) and sometimes huevos ( eggs) the children are malnutritioned, and the women lack in energy from numerous pregnancies and continuous breast-feeding.
We ventured into many communities around the volcano to compare diets, recipes and general health of the poeple.
Our main support is introducing OJUXTE!!!
Its magical stuff.
Made from a Mayan nut, this powder is not only full of nutrients and necessary vitamins but also good tasting and therefore appealing to the children!
How does the process of making Ujuxte look like?
Well why don´t we drive 3 hours, over to the other side of the Volcano, to Patulul, and find out!!
And so we did.
On Monday we loaded all our luggage onto the little boat and then onto the slightly bigger bus and off we went....
Imagine this: You arrive. hot, sweaty, and thirsty. you have to hike for an hour ( with your backpack of course) to get to the place, which is going to be your home for the next 5 days!
You imagining this??
Then you meet the most amazing people, who are poor ( in the eyes of a business man) but extremely rich in the eyes of anyone other. So you are happy again.
then they tell you that water only gets pumped up to the village every 2nd day- so at this point you might start being a bit scared again.
I could write pages just about my time in Patulul, but the most important thing that must be said, is that the people have spirit that can not be equaled my millions around the world.
What did I do?
Got up every morning at 4:30am to grind corn on a stone grinder and then make tortillas for the entire family. After then eating breakfast at about 6am- tortillas, atol and maybe huevos or frijoles we went to work. We walked 2miles to the coffee field and collected coffee for 3 hours approximately. It gets hot, ants are crawling up each of your body parts and the weight of a full basket tires you out BUT we all chatted, smiled and had fun and so the days went quickly. After then carrying about 100kg of coffee through the jungle we had to prepared lunch.
Important part of the day: siesta!!
But unfortunately if you are a woman apparently you don´t have those, because ou have to clean up after lunch. :(
In the afternoon we then did art projects with the children of the village: we painted, glued and played. We taught them English, they taught us Spanish.
The children of Patulul also made me realize that I am no longer in my youngest of years- when you get up at 4:30am and at 5pm you start playing football for an hour- there simply is NO energy left!
We would be in bed by about 7:30pm if we could BUT we still had to roast Ujuxte and coffee and cacao beans- so every night I fell into my bed at 10:30pm completely exhausted but more importantly fully satisfied with my actions that day!
We are now back in Sao Marco, we brought back some Ujuxte and have been giving nutrition talks around the local schools, which started on Monday. There was also a big ECO-event on Tuesday, where we built a whole new shop out of eco-bricks ( plastic bottles filled with plastic until rock hard used instead of bricks).
So now we are simply doing more good- our project regarding nutrition is going well- and I am actually speaking Spanish at a good level now.
More news:
I am now taking Spanish lessons, I am doing an Indian Head massage course ( so that I have a qualification as a masseuse), I have a job ( 5 days a week), I am doing health checks in schools around the lake and I got myself a house to move into.
Conclusion: for now I have suspended my flight out of Guatemala and am still on this beautiful journey through my own self.
I do not feel prepared to leave and there is nothing worse than leaving behind unfinished business when you don´t have to.
For the first time I feel like I am listening purely to my heart and not to my head.
One can go through life with your mind on a leash, or with a mind that has a leash on you!!!!
When there is so much positive energy and love; why leave.
Lago Magico is what they call it here. I now see why!
then they tell you that water only gets pumped up to the village every 2nd day- so at this point you might start being a bit scared again.
I could write pages just about my time in Patulul, but the most important thing that must be said, is that the people have spirit that can not be equaled my millions around the world.
What did I do?
Got up every morning at 4:30am to grind corn on a stone grinder and then make tortillas for the entire family. After then eating breakfast at about 6am- tortillas, atol and maybe huevos or frijoles we went to work. We walked 2miles to the coffee field and collected coffee for 3 hours approximately. It gets hot, ants are crawling up each of your body parts and the weight of a full basket tires you out BUT we all chatted, smiled and had fun and so the days went quickly. After then carrying about 100kg of coffee through the jungle we had to prepared lunch.
Important part of the day: siesta!!
But unfortunately if you are a woman apparently you don´t have those, because ou have to clean up after lunch. :(
In the afternoon we then did art projects with the children of the village: we painted, glued and played. We taught them English, they taught us Spanish.
The children of Patulul also made me realize that I am no longer in my youngest of years- when you get up at 4:30am and at 5pm you start playing football for an hour- there simply is NO energy left!
We would be in bed by about 7:30pm if we could BUT we still had to roast Ujuxte and coffee and cacao beans- so every night I fell into my bed at 10:30pm completely exhausted but more importantly fully satisfied with my actions that day!
We are now back in Sao Marco, we brought back some Ujuxte and have been giving nutrition talks around the local schools, which started on Monday. There was also a big ECO-event on Tuesday, where we built a whole new shop out of eco-bricks ( plastic bottles filled with plastic until rock hard used instead of bricks).
So now we are simply doing more good- our project regarding nutrition is going well- and I am actually speaking Spanish at a good level now.
More news:
I am now taking Spanish lessons, I am doing an Indian Head massage course ( so that I have a qualification as a masseuse), I have a job ( 5 days a week), I am doing health checks in schools around the lake and I got myself a house to move into.
Conclusion: for now I have suspended my flight out of Guatemala and am still on this beautiful journey through my own self.
I do not feel prepared to leave and there is nothing worse than leaving behind unfinished business when you don´t have to.
For the first time I feel like I am listening purely to my heart and not to my head.
One can go through life with your mind on a leash, or with a mind that has a leash on you!!!!
When there is so much positive energy and love; why leave.
Lago Magico is what they call it here. I now see why!
Yeah! Wow Ivy, i am in deed impressed.
ReplyDeleteMy full on respect for having embraced life to this degree in another place and culture and still beeing willing to embrace it further.
There is notwo ways about it, du musst mich besuchen sobald du wieder da bist!
Viel Glück weiterhin, sei dir klar es ist das Beste was du machen kanst was du gerade machst!